The Book

Uneasy is a book of Chris Buck’s portraits of the famous from 1986 to 2016. For three decades Buck has been carving out a unique space in the world of celebrity portraiture, capturing its ineffability - its danger, its oddness, its warped sense of reality.

The Introduction is a provocative piece of new writing from acclaimed author Sheila Heti, whose memoir How a Person Should Be was chosen as one of the best books of 2012 by The New York Times. The Stories section of Uneasy features over a hundred behind-the-scenes anecdotes by the photographer himself, with plenty of humor and surprises.

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The Project

Every Chris Buck photo is a mystery, a pervading, off-putting idea, always conceptual, often visceral, and sometimes unfathomable. I love penetrating words that make you think, and I adore startling images that are invasive.

Many of his portraits have become the iconic images of these subjects, including Steve Martin, Andy Samberg, Chris Farley, Billy Bob Thornton, and Michele Bachmann. Uneasy brings this singular work together in a large-scale exhibition and an elegantly designed hard cover book.

338 Color and B&W Photographs

Over 100 Behind-the-Scenes Anecdotes

The Photographer

Chris Buck was born in Toronto in July of 1964. His father worked for Kodak, so he went into the family business and became a photographer. Chris moved to New York in 1990 and established himself as a sought-after editorial and advertising photographer; his clients include Google, Xerox, Old Spice, Dodge, GQ, The New Yorker and The Guardian Weekend.

Buck has won multiple awards, including being the first recipient of the Arnold Newman Portrait Prize in 2007. His first book, Presence: The Invisible Portrait, published in 2012, was a collection of celebrity photos in which the famous sitters are present, but not visible. Kathy Ryan, Photo Director for The New York Times Magazine, called it a “crazy subversive book.”

He spends much of his free time with his wife Michelle and daughter Olive. He takes his martinis dry, with a twist.